


Blaine’s Rainbow Tour

by flickerthenflare



Category: Glee
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Canon LGBTQ Character, Coming of Age, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 15:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerthenflare/pseuds/flickerthenflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After dinner with Liz and Jan at Breadstix, Blaine decides he wants to find gay role models in hopes of becoming a better one himself. Along the way he finds a need to be more specific in his Craigslist advertising, a near fistfight, cage dancing, and less answers than he hoped for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blaine’s Rainbow Tour

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for underage drinking, homophobia, mentions of a past suicide attempt, swearing.  
> No spoilers after 4x22.  
> Thanks to ileliberte for the fantastic beta job!

**Unique**  
Blaine pulls at a tissue packet he keeps in his pocket. He holds it out because he has nothing else to offer and he wants to help. 

Unique looks at the proffered tissue and then back at him incredulously. “We’re in a bathroom. They have Kleenex.”

Without his tissues needed he feels useless again. He’s not friends with Unique. They barely interact. He doesn’t know what to do for her. She reminds him just enough of Kurt to feel like he’s been here before but knows at the same time that it’s not the same. 

“Do you need a breath mint? They’re the only other thing I have.”

Unique sighs. “Hold my wig.”

Blaine suspects that maybe she’s placating him but he reaches for it. “I can do that.” He gives her what’s supposed to be a dashing smile that feels like a poor imitation of his brother’s. Blaine combs the locks back into place with his fingers. He watches her splash water on her face and then re-apply makeup. 

He’s no good at this. Marley should be here instead, because Marley is sweet and her best friend and is protective in her care for her. Or Ryder, because Ryder should clean up his own messes and that includes the emotional ones. Or Kitty, because . . . no, not Kitty. He doesn’t trust Kitty. Maybe Jake? 

“You’re not supposed to be here.” She sounds amused as she says it but Blaine suspects it’s forced. “Wanted to see what it’s like?”

Blaine glanced around the restroom. “I came here a few times last year with Kurt. I don’t think it’s changed. He swears the soap’s better, though.”

Unique forces a dramatic gasp. “That is a bald-faced lie!”

“I know.” Blaine smiles. “He knew I’d come at the promise of better soap.” At the promise of more time with Kurt, particularly if Kurt was in a bad enough mood he’d chance taking solace there. He followed Kurt out of rockstar status at Dalton Academy to the cautionary tale of education neglected that was William McKinley High School, what’s a girls’ restroom after that? At worst Blaine will get a weird look or a scolding from a teacher for being here. He’s probably less likely to face consequences for this than Unique is: he’s making trouble in what must be a joke gone too far and she’s acting like she has a right to something as basic as her own comfort, and McKinley punishes one offense far more seriously. 

“You seem awfully okay with him lying to you.” There’s a hard edge around _lying_ that betrays how little her words relate to him and Kurt.

“Well, we both knew it was a lie,” he says lightly. He’d have followed Kurt regardless. Whether under the presumption that switching to McKinley _wouldn’t_ lead to resentment and/or a messy break up once left alone there, or that he could wash his hands without gritty residue under his nails and between his fingers, the promise of what he thought he was getting wasn’t what made him do it. 

He hesitates before he asks. “Do you want to talk?” She looks so sad even if the need for tissues is gone. He suspects her tears are connected to Ryder’s newfound dickish behavior. There hasn’t been that much ineffectual shouting and quitting since Rachel and Finn were their glee club stars.

He hesitates because he doesn’t really want to become Unique’s confidant, even if he profoundly dislikes Ryder at the moment. He wants to distance himself from her and then feels terrible because she has to be lonely and he knows all about inappropriate crushes even though he says again and again that he doesn’t want to be seen as predatory and with the catfish thing, she doesn’t seem like anything but. He doesn’t want people to think he’s anything like her. He doesn’t want to wear dresses and he doesn’t want to be a girl and he _desperately_ doesn’t want to be a threat. Blaine runs a hand over his carefully contained hair. “We can talk,” he repeats.

“I doubt you have a solution and I don’t want to be scolded.” She takes her wig back. Back to being useless, then. Blaine’s hands fall to his sides.

He should get Kurt. Kurt’s better at feelings and hanging out in girls’ restrooms and knowing what to do (and rebuilding bridges with guys who aren’t as cool as Sam about being crushed on by someone they don’t want). His only piece of advice is you shouldn’t have done that, which isn’t very forward thinking. And very hypocritical, because he understands inappropriate crushes far too well.

Unique looks startled that he’s still around as well. “Why did you follow me? We’re hardly friends. You don’t like me.” 

She needs someone and if he flatters himself Blaine thinks he’s better than nothing. “You’re family.”

New Directions uses _family_ to explain friendship without boundaries and sometimes why they’re terrible to each other. Blaine read in a gay history book that asking _are you family_ used to be code to help lesbians find each other when they couldn’t ask openly and that tidbit of history stuck with him. He likes the idea of family as something you find over time and you don’t know who’s going to be a part of it until you ask. 

Maybe it’s his preoccupation with marriage that has him thinking about families as something that you find. His family, while loved, hasn’t taught him much. Not about love and not about himself. At weddings you tie your life to someone and everyone else you’re tied to looks on and is supposed to feel proud for getting you there. You’re part of a tradition. At best he expects exasperation from his parents when they find out his intentions. Cooper will barely pay attention long enough to let the information sink in unless he gets to perform at the ceremony. But Liz and Jan were excited for him. 

He thinks about the stories they told so openly, and about how they fit into the history of contemporary gay rights in the US. How they asked him if he had any gay role models. He can’t resist trying to be one although he seems to be failing spectacularly. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Blaine confesses. _Again. Still._ He pretends to. He acts older than he is. He has a box for an engagement ring in his pocket to prove it. He wants to be better than he is: once again, the box in his pocket, because he wants to be a better man and he wants Kurt to be his better half and he really wants to be done with all this uncertainty. “I want to help if I can.”

Wanting to help and knowing how are worlds apart. His life repeats and he didn’t learn the lesson right the first time to apply it to the second. For Kurt he pretended to be older than he was and gave advice because that’s what he thought Kurt needed. 

Kurt pushes through the doors and throws his arms up in surprise when he sees he isn’t alone, an _ohh!_ forming on his lips as he takes in Blaine and Unique and Unique’s makeup kit.

“Are you okay?” Blaine asks.

Kurt looks at him fondly and Blaine realizes he’s an idiot given what Kurt just stumbled upon. 

Kurt boosts his weight up onto the sink and perches there, legs crossed in a delicate balance. He fixes his attention on Unique. “I’m going to tell you a story, and I know it’s not your story, but I hope it helps.” 

Blaine listens to the story he’s heard Kurt tell before about the relationship he wanted and the one he got instead with the boy who became his brother. Kurt is so easy to love. He’s grateful not just for how he’s helping Unique by sharing himself but for sparing Blaine from screwing things up again.

He always meant to get better at this: the knowing what to do, what to say, to actually be helpful. To stop playing at having the answers as long as he sounded self-assured when he gave them. He was 16 when he met Kurt when Kurt desperately needed someone who knew what to do. Three years have passed and he’s clueless. He’s spent too long stuck not knowing what to do already.

He resolves, right there, to figure it out. 

 

**The Berrys**  
Kurt deems it his “Rainbow Tour” when he calls to get the Berrys’ home number from Rachel. Kurt isn’t Rachel’s gatekeeper, Blaine could call Rachel directly, but it’s a nice excuse to hear Kurt’s voice and not seem too needy.

“Switch to Skype: I want to see your face,” Kurt orders when Blaine starts rambling about his plan to find more gay role models like Jan and Liz mentioned during dinner at Breadstix to see what he can learn from then. “We’ll call in Rachel for the number later.”

Blaine agrees immediately. He fusses with his hair a second before turning the camera on. He beats Kurt to logging in, as usual. “Ready and waiting,” he says into the phone. 

“Hold on.”

He’s always waiting for Kurt. He scrambles to be ready while Kurt can’t be rushed. Blaine still can’t bear to take his time, he’ll pick waiting over missing one second of Kurt.

“Hi!” Blaine greets eagerly once Kurt’s image appears on screen, computer situated on his plush bed in New York, head in his hands and feet kicked up in the air. 

“Hi,” Kurt replies more demurely, eyes not quiet meeting Blaine’s as they slide to the corner of the screen where his image is reflected back at him. Blaine’s come to expect as much and feels more fondness than exasperation at how Kurt tends to spend the first few minutes of any video call preening at his reflection. Every move is calculated, head tilted from side to side until he finds the perfect angle. He’s realized that affecting an accent modeled after one of his favorite divas is a little much, at least. 

“Tell me about your Rainbow Tour,” Kurt says as he tilts his head slightly to the right.

“Rachel’s dads seemed like the obvious place to start. Or the only place.” Adults are never around when he actually wants them. Nearly every gay person he meets in Lima is a teenager like him, figuring it out on their own. And all of them intend to leave. It’s like a gay ghost town. “You’ve met them, right? Rachel’s dads?”

“Not really. I mean, yes, in passing, but they’re kind of mythical.” 

“Like unicorns?”

“Like unicorns,” Kurt confirms with a smile. “Or parental buzzkills to teenage shenanigans. By the time Rachel and I got to the point where I’d actually want to go to her house and spend extracurricular time with her, high school was almost over anyway.” And sleepovers with his gal pals became less of an actuality and more of a cover story for sleeping with Blaine. Blaine grins at the memory of sneaking Kurt in after school and keeping him there through the night without his parents ever noticing. It was surprisingly easy to get away with. 

“I think Rachel kept them obscure on purpose,” Kurt muses. 

“Obscure? Really?” Blaine shakes his head because sometimes Kurt makes no sense, even to him. “She’s always talking about her two gay dads. Rachel has a lot of opinions and two gay dads. It’s like her thing. Everyone knows about them.”

“As a threat. They’re scarier before you realize they’re people. They don’t actually have ties to the ACLU, you know. They’ve never sued the school district, or shut down a Christmas pageant, or made Figgins cry. Rachel said she’s concocted some strongly-worded letters on their behalf, but it’s all the idea of them more than the actuality.”

Blaine quirks a bemused eyebrow. “But I’ll be allowed to meet them?”

“Rachel’s not trying to intimidate you. The rest of the glee club already met them when you were out sick, remember?”

He vaguely remembers, but only because Puck referred to them as Kurt and Blaine from the Future. Blaine wasn’t there. How could he remember something he wasn’t there for? 

“Weren’t you curious?”

“About the inconsistencies in Rachel’s stories about them? About where Rachel got her personality from? About how they could let her outside of the house in owl sweaters?”

“Just them, I guess.”

When Blaine first realized he was gay and what that meant, he turned to books and the internet for guidance. And then got distracted by what else the internet had to offer. He didn’t know anyone who was gay. Wes started Blaine’s interest in oral history while at Dalton and Blaine already found people fascinating but he didn’t think much about how many stories they had until then. He wants to know what their lives have been like. Kurt didn't have the same drive to place himself in the arch of history. Blaine told a hanky code joke about one of his outfits and Kurt stared at him blankly. He didn't know what Stonewall was until Blaine elaborated and his eyes glazed over when Blaine went further back in history to the Mattachine Society. He lost Kurt completely by the time he got back to WWII. Shortly after The Transfer to McKinley he offered Kurt his small, carefully cultivated library of LGBT books, from history to novels to short stories to a book of poems. Kurt laughed, not unkindly. “Why would I need books to tell me who I am?” Blaine resented Kurt, a little, for not needing them. Admired him a little too. But the books stayed in Blaine’s possession. Looks like the Rainbow Tour will be Blaine’s solo venture as well.

“I think you’ll like them,” Kurt says. “Worst case scenario you can turn the night into a sing-along.”

***

He resists saying, “I’ve gotten drunk in your basement” when he meets them. Or, “I can't believe you didn’t notice we replaced your vodka with water: that’s not supposed to work.” Or, “I made out with your daughter. I think she was wearing a nightgown at the time.” He doesn’t ask why he didn’t even know they existed when he and Kurt needed adults because he realizes it’s probably unfair to hold them accountable for not knowing Kurt needed them any more than he can hold himself accountable for not knowing what to do. They agreed to meet eagerly enough when he called.

His filter doesn’t stop “so why aren’t you married?” from squeaking out moments after he accepts their invitation to sit down. 

He meant to start somewhere easier. They're in their 50s, like his own father, which means they’ve lived through a lot of history. They lived through the civil rights era. Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruling that legalized interracial marriage nationwide, passed during their lifetimes. His father was alive for that one too and Blaine exists because of it, which isn't exactly true because he could exist anyway but his parents aren't really the defy conventions types. He knows a couple – older friends of his parents – who traveled out of state to get married somewhere legal for them. He wonders if the Berrys remember Stonewall; they were children at the time for that too but perhaps old enough to know. If they remembered anti-sodomy laws slowly being removed. What it was like to be young and dating when the AIDS crisis hit. None of those are easy places to start, really. He should’ve started with the overly vague “tell me about your lives” or asked how they met and let the rest come from that. Marriage is on him mind a lot, lately, so that’s what escapes his filter.

Hiram cocks an eyebrow behind his thick glasses. “Is this how we’re handling the getting to know yous?”

“What did you think the boy wanted to ask about?” Leroy counters. “It’s not an unusual question. Rachel first asked when she was four.”

“Where do these kids get their obsessions with marriage _from_?” His eyebrows have reached a truly impressive height. Blaine wants to text Kurt about it and tease him about taking lessons to distract from squirming awkwardly on the Berrys’ couch. 

“We would’ve gotten married if we could and you know that. It’s not just a young-people obsession.”

“Not sure we would’ve.”

Leroy scoffs. “Are you saying you wouldn’t marry me?”

“Don’t act like I’m saying I don’t love you, it’s not the same!” 

Fighting – even mild-mannered bickering like this – makes Blaine uncomfortable even though of course they both have forceful personalities: Rachel’s personality didn’t come from a vacuum. Still. If Rachel’s parents call it quits after 25+ years together over something he said, she will never forgive him. “Can we fast forward to the cabaret portion of the evening?”

They both turn and look at him indulgently and oh god, this must be what it feels like to be Rachel Berry.

“Whatever you want, dear,” Leroy says. 

They open up after a little singing at the piano and taking turns playing, music making strangers seem more familiar. They tell him about all the legal hoops they jumped through to tie themselves to each other for Rachel’s sake. How Rachel doesn’t have grandparents, just them, and they started fresh with a family name they chose for themselves. 

Leroy seems calmer when he lays a hand on Hiram’s arm while Hiram keeps playing and says, “Marriage to us isn’t about love. It’s not our relationship that needs it. We know what we have. It’s about respect from others, and rights. That’s what we want.”

Hiram nods in agreement. “We could declare ourselves married at anytime but I’m not going to waste my time arguing the validity of it.”

“But there’s Canada, or New York…” Blaine can’t resist wanting to problem solve for them.

“We don’t live there,” Hiram says forcefully. “I’m not going to call Leroy my husband only for some meddling asshole to tell me he’s not like I’ve forgotten my place. I call him my partner and no one can argue with that because it’s ours to decide.” His eyes drift fondly back to Leroy.

Blaine holds his tongue about the Supreme Court ruling he’s hoping for. Did they predict this future at this time? In this order, with this world around them? They met a quarter of a century ago, and they’ve been inseparable since. Blaine imagines putting in that many years. The three he’s known Kurt in brought so many changes in ways less obvious than just aging. The way Kurt holds himself is different – far more self-assured than the child Blaine met on the stairs – even if Blaine fits into his side the same. 

Blaine gets lost in a fantasy of his life with Kurt when they have a home and a piano and a Rachel Berry of their own. Kurt tells him it won’t happen if Blaine refers to it as “having a mini Rachel Berry” again, but Blaine thinks Kurt’s kidding himself if he doesn’t believe any child of theirs wouldn’t be just as precocious and driven and obsessed with being right all the time. Kurt loves Rachel, and it’s the kind of love that takes work, but kids aren’t supposed to be easy anyway. Families aren’t easy. Leroy and Hiram love each other anyway, and Blaine finds that comforting.

 

**Jan and Liz**  
Blaine is at a loss on who to turn to next. He thinks of Coach Beiste next, but then he remembers that she said she dates men and he’s making assumptions. Jan and Liz invite him over for brunch before he can leave for New York, and he readily agrees. They give him a tour, too, like the Berrys did. So far his Rainbow Tour has been quite literal. Both couples have fed him, too. He thought sharing a meal as a pretense to spend time together was something only his family did. 

Jan and Liz’s house feels like it’s been lived in for a long time. There are no empty spaces left. Pictures of the two of them on their adventures across the country line the walls. Liz tells him to take his time, if he’s interested.

He thinks there’s something fundamentally different between the adults who live in Lima by choice and the teenagers who desperately want to escape. Maybe it’s the choosing. Blaine knows nowhere is perfect. Yet. Nowhere is perfect yet. He’s hopeful enough to tack on a yet to the end of that. Nowhere is perfect yet. Not even the great fantasy locale of New York City. One of the first calls he received from Kurt after Kurt moved there came after being stuck in a subway car with a delirious man ranting about _faggot_ everything and Kurt posed a suggestion that, to fit his vision, New Yorkers be screened for awfulness before being allowed to live there. The wonderfulness of the city is relative to its even less glamorous surroundings. It’s not the absence of small mindedness that makes New York what it is, it’s the ability to find something else as well. 

The teenagers of Lima all believe in a place that’s better than their hometown is. And how to get there. It’s easier to image a place that’s better than a future time where Lima’s better.

“Are you coming back?” Jan asks.

He can’t picture it. He can’t picture Lima as a place he wants to be. He likes to think it’ll get better in their absence, maybe even got a little better through their presence, but he’s not sure he’ll ever believe “this isn’t a town where that sort of thing happens” means anything but they’ve forgotten already. He’s reached an uneasy peace that allows him to live there and function in the world around him.

“Maybe,” he says. Nostalgia’s a funny thing with selective memory in its fondness, when he doesn’t have to think hard – doesn’t have to put intention behind it at all – to know the aches this town causes that have nothing to do with tugs on his heartstrings. He might miss Lima even though it’s terrible. And then he realizes he’s being a little too lofty and she’s probably not asking about _forever_ and amends to say, “I mean of course! This is just a visit to get some things settled! I’m not moving yet.”

 

**Adam**  
Blaine tips up and forward to get at Kurt’s mouth and having to do so is not _new_ so much as _more_. He wouldn’t notice if he saw Kurt everyday, but distance makes the difference stark. “You’re always changing and I stay the same.” 

‘You’ve changed,” Kurt tells him before pulling Blaine back into the kiss meant to reacquaint them after too long apart.

Blaine isn’t sure how he feels about how he’s changed either. For the better, he hopes, at least in the absolute despite his steps back. His suitcase with all he needs for a visit plus extras to leave behind with Kurt lies at his feet where it tipped over when he dropped the handle to reach for Kurt with both hands. He nearly stumbles over it in an attempt to get closer to Kurt. “Remember when I was taller than you?”

Kurt nods fondly. “That didn’t last long after my Dalton-inspired growth spurt.”

“They didn’t offer me one of those with the uniform,” Blaine says with a (mostly) feigned pout. He pushes up on his toes again to reach the height he, once upon a time, thought he would reach. He read that stressful environments stunt growth, and Kurt shooting up inch after inch as soon as he made it to Dalton’s peaceful environment confirmed the theory in Blaine’s mind. Blaine never experienced the same, just slowly edging upward, despite how much longer he spent at Dalton than Kurt. It’s strange to think about how much time has passed, and he’s on the same quest to see how he fits in the world around him. 

“I think your butt’s bigger.” Kurt slips his hands down to feel. “Too many layers to be sure. I’ll have to see.”

Blaine flushes in embarrassment, even as he pushes back into Kurt’s hands, at the thought that his ass has gotten even fatter; that _that’s_ how his body decided to fill out instead of broadening his shoulders or his chest or bringing him back on level with Kurt’s mouth. He tries not to be insulted by Kurt pointing it out. The love of his life liking parts of him he doesn’t should be comforting. 

Kurt retrieves the dropped suitcase. “We’ll have to confirm this theory later. You have somewhere to be. This time you get to be the new kid.”

“Will you give me a tour? Do you know any shortcuts? Should I stick to a certain uniform?” He won’t wait so long between running down the hallways with Kurt to show him something _amazing_ and kissing him senseless. Soon he’ll start a new life. He hopes he’s ready for it. He wants to be a better person by the time it comes.

“We’ll make time for deserted hallways, I promise. For today, I’ve made some arrangements for you. Do you trust yourself to use the subway alone?”

He doesn’t trust himself, but he wants to try. He makes his way through warm streets to the subway station. Blaine still has the tendency to look at the sky and see how far the buildings extend, hustle and bustle built on top of itself until the air itself seems busy. New York, New York, full of contradictions in its repetition. So connected and so alone. He can smell the sewer and the bakery down the way and he doesn’t know how to feel. Maybe nauseous, maybe excited. The world is vast and he is not.

Blaine allows too much time for travel and he’s at a café next to NYADA before he’s expected. He claims a table near the window to watch the place where he one day intends to live.

***

Blaine suspects Kurt is fucking with him. As soon as the smirking hipster he’s been told to wait for introduces himself as Adam, Blaine makes the connection to Kurt’s Adam. Not _Kurt’s_ Adam anymore, really, but he’s definitely the guy Kurt dated once. Jealousy bites. Blaine’s so not Kurt’s type, obviously, and standing right before his is another tall, pale, _fratty_ proof-point with his messy hair and his knowing smirk.

“Kurt told me about your project. Said you needed a mentor.”

He even sounds cool. International man of hipsterness with a posh accent. Blaine’s so boring, such an unworldly kid, in comparison. A boring kid who didn’t see this coming. He doesn’t doubt Kurt’s capabilities for revenge: he’s seen Kurt hold onto resentment and then strike. Eviscerate someone with a smile. He’s capable of a long play. But he doesn’t pretend affection. Kurt loves him. Blaine’s only point of contention with Adam is Adam also realizes how great Kurt is, and even with his selfish jealousy in mind it’s hard to find fault in that.

“I’m supposed to be on a tour.”

“Got to walk and talk before you can dance and sing. We can do both.”

Blaine doesn’t try hard enough to keep the apprehension off his face. 

“My offer is sincere. Without Kurt around you must be hard up for gay men in rural Ohio. I mean, you obviously managed to find _one_. . .”

He can’t even fault Adam for disliking him. He thinks Karofsky is a terrible person for what he did to Kurt – Blaine will gladly hold grudges on Kurt’s behalf – but when Karofsky was decidedly _not okay_ Blaine still wanted him to find support. With Blaine’s story explained in a certain way his desire for someone to talk to sounds more dire than it is. 

Blaine stands. “I’ll be fine.” 

He’s not suicidal. He wants guidance, not an intervention, and he’s gotten by fine this long without coaxing kindness out of a stranger. He’d been low because he made Kurt his everything and when he lost Kurt he lost everything and, looking back, he’s even more thankful for Sam and Tina and sometimes the new kids’ friendship because his loneliness felt inescapable, but he means it now when he says he’s fine. He’s not desperate enough for this. 

“Hold on, now. If I’m going to do Kurt a favor, I’m going to do it right, and you storming off puts a damper on that.”

“He’ll understand.” Kurt can’t hold the satisfaction of a dramatic exit against him.

“No, c’mon. I’ll play nice. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

“That’s my line.” He acquiesces anyway. Kurt can be cruel, but not without reason. It's not just spite that's sent him here. He remembers Kurt – when Blaine first ventured into offering his brand of inexperienced but earnest mentorship – saying it was nice for Blaine and the Warbler council to buy him coffee before beating him up. Kurt still took the chance on meeting with them. Blaine knows Adam won’t physically harm him, so he might as well take a chance of a little emotional abuse in case his reservations are wrong. Learn to be a better gay from Kurt’s kind-of ex. 

Adam gestures for Blaine to step in front of him in the line. “Kurt said your search stalled after two elderly couples.”

“I put out a Craigslist ad. The responses were . . . strange.” He comforts himself by choosing to believe Sebastian is messing with him.

_“18 Year Old Seeks Mentorship from Older Gays?”_

“I’m 19 now.” Otherwise that’s pretty much exactly how his ad went. 

Adam bites back a smile. “You’re not that bright, are you?”

“Excuse you, my grades are fantastic. I had a four-point _before_ I transferred to a school where they expect nothing from you.” It’s not the argument he expects to start with Adam. It’s not his fault he missed enough of one year of high school to try it again the next.

He hates Adam’s smile already, and how it never leaves his face. This must be what Santana feels like when she sees him: irritatingly upbeat.

“Hardly what I meant, although I did excuse some of your foolishness as being a child and you’re a full year removed from that excuse.”

Blaine tips his chin in what Finn once dubbed his Country Club Smack Down look. “Could you impart your wisdom so I can go home?” Adam rubs at all his insecurities and makes Blaine forget his deep desire to be polite to strangers. He could so easily lose Kurt to someone better who deserves him more while fumbling with his failure to grow up despite pretending to be an adult for years.

Adam isn’t even fazed. “You’re just mad because you agree with me.”

“I want to stop feeling like this.” He’s the bad guy in his own head. He remembers Sam’s talk about villainizing himself where everything he does in wrong. It’s so much easier having a relationship with Kurt now that Kurt’s not the only one keeping him afloat and he doesn’t worry everything’s going to break them. 

Adam disliking him won’t be one of those things he’s going to worry about. He screwed up and he still has Kurt in his life because Kurt chose to be there. He has nothing to prove to Adam. He exhales.

“There we go.” Adam’s smile’s more genuine. “NYADA’s big into learning through criticism. You’ll get smarter.”

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome,” Adam says with absolute sincerity. “Let’s rock this tour.” 

 

**Karofsky**  
A makeover would do Scandals good, Blaine decides. Better lighting, for sure. Maybe an obligatory dress code. He’ll ask Kurt for further recommendations the next time they Skype. He’s not sure Kurt’ll remember what the bar looks like since it’s been so long. 

Blaine smacks his lips at the sticky-sweet flavor and swirls his straw in his Shirley Temple with extra cherries. “I want to get married to Kurt. And then I met this nice older lesbian couple who gave me advice and in the process reminded me that I haven’t had many gay role models, and I’d like to. And then I met Kurt’s sort-of ex and I think he hates me but he wanted me to be okay. Which made me think of you.”

Further down the bar, leaning heavily back against the counter top, Karofsky watches incredulously. “Do you understand how people work?”

Blaine doesn’t know how to respond so he fishes out a cherry from his Shirley Temple and neatly pops it into his mouth. His imaginary conversations with people he doesn’t like run much more smoothly than actuality. 

“We’re not friends. We’re not even acquaintances. The list of people you announce these intentions to shouldn’t include guys who want to do your boyfriend unless you feel that I’m a threat and this is your way of saying back off.”

He doesn’t consider Karofsky a threat _at all_ but it seems rude to say so. He doesn’t think he’s Kurt’s usual type either, and he’s really not about to admit that to someone he’s not on friendly terms with. “I thought it made a nice excuse to start fresh.” 

Karofsky rolls his eyes. “This is so girly. Did Kurt put you up to this?”

Blaine takes a moment to recollect: most of their encounters have ended with one of them shoving the other and he’d like to avoid that this time. He has a drink in hand and he knows how much it’ll burn if it ends up in Karofsky’s face, even if he ordered a non-alcoholic drink because he could feel the bouncer’s indulgence when she waved him through. Given his experience with eye injuries – with being attacked – he really shouldn’t spend so much time creating mental strategies on how best to injure the person he’s talking to. Figuring out how far away the bouncer is. How many witnesses there are. If the number of people really guarantees that someone will come to his aid.  
Blaine takes another sip. 

“You can tell him I’m fine. He doesn’t need to panic every time I call. I’d have stopped ages ago if he didn’t sound like he was the one who needs it.”

Blaine tries not to perk up with interest too noticeably. He knows nothing of Kurt accepting calls from Karofsky, although of course Kurt would. The nearly two months Kurt spent avoiding his calls took more resolve than Blaine expected him to have. If Blaine plays it cool he can find out . . .

“He didn’t tell you,” Karofsky observes.

“Not a word.” Blaine can’t resist, he literally can’t help himself because the words, “do you want to talk about it?” are out like a reflex. “Don’t listen to advice if I give it, because I can’t help myself and it won’t be good, but I can listen.”

Karofsky ignores him. It’s probably for the best. “I bet he’s shitting himself over this marriage stuff. When he visited me in the hospital his Happy Place he asked me to go to was a husband and a kid. He didn’t tell you this either?”

Blaine doesn’t get how Karofsky reads him so well when he doesn’t seem to care about people when, despite all the best intentions in the world, Blaine can never figure them out. “I think he’s more careful about what he says about you now.” _Not because of how you threatened him but because he’s a decent person._

“It’s such a cliché, you know? Of all the things he could’ve picked. He goes with something not even possible.”

“But it is,” Blaine argues.

“Not in Ohio.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” Karofsky begrudges. “You set up a house with a guy and it’s obvious you’re not hiding a thing. When Kurt told me to think of the future that’s what I pictured. I pictured just living my life, not hiding and not caring about anyone else. That’s what I’m working toward.”

It’s a funny thing to say in a poorly lit bar, Blaine thinks, where they need fake identification to even get in. The problem with the lighting, Blaine decides, is that it makes the bar look like it’s hiding from itself. Maybe that’s why it seems so outdated. If he remodeled it, he’d flood it with light. And scrub everything really, really well. 

Blaine takes another sip.

 

**Quinn**  
Kurt doesn’t take to Blaine’s suggestion to try a second outing to a gay club – this time in New York – under Blaine’s argument that they’re older and wiser and Blaine won’t drink this time. “I’m not fighting for your attention all night. No.”

“You always pull focus.” Blaine grins and leans expectantly into Kurt’s shoulder until Kurt returns with a fond smile of his own. It’s not fond enough to delude Blaine into thinking he’s won, though, even if the day is just beginning over breakfast in the loft kitchen and they have plenty of time left in the day to change their minds. New York teems with history, and he can settle for a day planned around that instead. “Bookstore, coffee shop, landmark? Can we go to Stonewall? Eat ice cream in Christopher Park?”

Santana slams the cupboards loudly to see if the noise will startle them apart. It doesn’t. “Snoozefest. You wanna get your gay on, why don’t you come visit me at work? You’re like honorary lesbians already.”

Kurt snorts. “Cage dancing? We’d have to be the ones behind bars to sit through that.”

At the same time Blaine says, “It’ll be fun! I have it on good authority that I look like a butch Israeli girl.”

Kurt side-eyes him hard. “You did not just refer to Sue Sylvester as a good authority.”

“I seconded it,” Santana smirks. 

“Do you think I could sign up for Krav Maga? Israeli street fighting? They have classes near NYADA.” Boxing’s nice, but he could try something different to mix it up. The newness of the city will overwhelm him, no doubt, once he moves officially and stops being just a visitor, but right now he’s anxious to expand his horizons in as many ways as possible. 

Kurt steals coffee Blaine’s mug. “That’d be cute.”

Somewhere along the line they started using _cute_ as an in-public version of _hot_. Blaine ducks his head.

“I bet Quinn would come to see you perform even though I’ve been asking all year for her to visit, and then when you’re busy she’ll have to hang out with me!” Rachel pulls out her phone to start texting Quinn immediately. “Can one of you check the train schedule so I can tell her exactly how easy it’ll be?”

Blaine looks up at Kurt questioningly.

“I think she’s pining,” Kurt explains. He has his own phone out and on the Amtrak website immediately.

Quinn takes the train from New Haven with surprisingly little coaxing. One mention that they’ll be visiting Santana at her work and she agrees.

***

Bars stay open far later in New York than they do in Ohio. It’s nearing 1 AM when Blaine finally convinces Kurt to join him on the dance floor and focus on being in Blaine’s arms over being uncomfortable somewhere so overtly sexual, with the cage dancers that include one of his closest friends. Kurt prickles at being led away from the bar where he can at least lean and have only one side exposed, but all Blaine has to do is tip into him and he has all of Kurt’s focus. They slow dance despite the pumping beat and Blaine’s desire to shimmy.

Alongside them Rachel, overjoyed to have her friend close once again, hugs Quinn and Quinn pats at her more hesitantly. He doesn’t understand their friendship but it’s sweet. Quinn watches every move Santana makes and Blaine understands that better. Looking away from Kurt to watch his friends took a concerted amount of effort. The collective amount of time he spends looking at Kurt could add up to months, maybe years at this point, and it feels new each second.

“Sleeping with your best friend is the best,” Blaine hums.

The humoring look Kurt gives him says he doesn’t understand what brought on Blaine’s declaration, but he doesn’t disagree. 

“Wanna make out in a seedy club? I feel that should be on your bucket list if it’s not already. Here, give me your phone and I’ll add it for you.”

“One small kiss,” Kurt warns. He doesn’t hand over his bucket list.

Blaine can’t resist bringing up the tempo of their movements once he gets his kiss. His enthusiasm has a natural outlet in dancing. He spins Kurt and bounces on his heels. Kurt does his signature shoulder shimmy, the source of Blaine’s own that he started doing to tease Kurt and does now because he associates it with Kurt’s blown eyes locked on him and making him feel sexier than he thought possible. 

“I think Blaine gets drunk by osmosis.” Rachel giggles, and her voice isn’t as soft as she thinks it is. She’s too used to projecting. Blaine overhears and chooses to keep dancing. Kurt follows him at half tempo, still looking uncertain in his surroundings that include dancers in cages.

“Are you sure he hasn’t had anything?” She asks. 

Quinn appraises him. “He’s good at blending.”

The club thrums with energy and Blaine wants to be a part of it. Despite the fact that there are people in cages, everyone seems to be in a really good mood. “I could be a cage dancer.” Blaine takes a step back from Kurt to run a hand over his hair and shimmy in his signature Trying to Be Hot move. 

Rachel perks up with interest. Kurt does the opposite with eyes narrowed. 

“I’ll put you in a cage and you can dance for me,” Kurt mutters darkly. 

“Wanky!” Quinn cackles and then slaps a hand over her mouth that mostly covers her exhaled, “what has become of me?” 

Rachel hides a giggle behind her fingers. 

Kurt’s crimson and unblinking in his mortification. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

Rachel laughs harder and hides behind Quinn when her hand doesn’t mask it well enough.

“I didn’t mean it at all!” Kurt covers his mouth in both hands. A muffled _sorry!_ comes out between them. 

“I could be a _private_ dancer. Just for you.” He cozies up to Kurt to pull his hands. Kurt lets him but he still holds himself too stiffly. “Don’t be jealous,” he murmurs as he brushes his nose against Kurt’s. “You don’t need to be.” He knew going out to a bar would be hard for Kurt on the off chance it reminded him too much of feeling jilted at Scandals or the reason for their break up.

“That sounded terrible of me.” Kurt admits. His eyes don’t quite connect with Blaine’s. “I didn’t mean it literally. It was a stupid spin on your words.” His eyes slide further to the ground. “I say stupid things when I’m jealous. I’m working on it.”

“I know it seems like I don’t learn from my mistakes, but I could – I could _never_ –” Blaine swallows. “Kurt. Whether we’re in a bar of women who are just as uninterested in me as I am in them, or in a whole world of options that include Zachary Quinto, I’m going to want you. I want what we have more than anything else.”

Kurt looks up from their joined hands with the beginnings of a cautious smile at being forgiven. “Easy promise to make in a lesbian bar.”

“Lesbians _love_ me.”

“Two elderly lesbians have grandmotherly feelings toward you. Two lesbians are hardly a trend.”

“Three,” Blaine indicates vaguely toward Santana’s cage, “four . . .” He gestures to Quinn. The glare Quinn shoots him looks nothing like love he claims she feels for him. “Somewhere under the LGBT umbrella,” he amends.

He missed experiencing Quinn at her iciest – their other friends unanimously agree that her sophomore year was the worst as she clung to her popularity as long as she could – but the look she given him rivals the legends. She disappears into the crowd shortly after without saying a word. 

Halfhearted applause draws Blaine's attention back to the rest of the bar and how he missed the show ending.  
He thinks _maybe she'd be less pissed if I hadn't interrupted what she came to see._ If Kurt were a dancer and someone interrupted... He can't get sucked into that fantasy right now that he's in public and hopefully holding a conversation, but he's mentally bookmarking that to come back to, without the being interrupted plotline. He's going to get a lot of use out of that.

Quinn’s easy to spot when he goes looking for her. She looks pretty but out of place in one of her yellow sundresses more fitted for a picnic in the park than a seedy club.

“I didn’t mean to assume? I mean, other than assuming that making assumptions is the problem.” He waits for her to respond.

“I don’t like who I am when I sleep with men. So. I’m taking a break.” Quinn’s eyes slide over him the way that Kurt’s do sometimes when he doesn’t want to deal with someone but he has to acknowledge their presence. “I don’t have to justify anything to you.”

“I’m not asking you to? Am I making you uncomfortable?” She doesn’t answer but it’s loud at the bar and a new song just started. He slides in next to her. “I have some books you could read,” Blaine shouts over the ominously pumping bass, leaning in like he had a secret but at the top of his lungs. He remembers Karofsky pushing him up against the chain-link fence around the stairs at McKinley, Blaine’s hands raised to show he meant no harm. He didn’t convince him. He doesn’t mean Quinn any harm either. He wants to _help_. He needs a better way to communicate that that doesn’t result in her sliding away from him. 

“This isn’t who I am. I’m getting married one day.”

_Me too_ , he’s about to say, too smug for his own good, even if smugness isn’t helpful. She already knows, and either she forgot or it doesn’t count, and he’s hurt either way. His hurt feelings aren’t the point, though. 

“If she's not fulfilling men's desires then what's she for?” Santana snarks, no longer in a cage and stalking over in next to nothing.

Quinn looks up and her eyes are cold. “Boob job says what?”

“I didn't hear you complaining!” 

Blaine may not know Santana as well as Kurt, but he’s figured out that when her tone gets that vicious, it’s the warning sign of a screaming match yet to come. “That’s probably unfair…”

“You want to talk about who’s fake? Who’s more plastic, you or me?”

Blaine forgets that they’ve both altered their bodies when they didn’t think they were pretty enough. Quinn injected her face full of plastic and rearranged her nose as a child to make people love her and yet he’s surprised that she’s terrified of being something that’ll earn her plenty of hate. His train of thought isn’t fair if she’s straight: maybe she’s just mad because he’s making the wrong assumptions, which seems very close to telling her who to be. 

Kurt’s voice is calm when he says, “We have to pay our tabs before we can leave, Satan, why don’t you get dressed?”

Blaine tries to express his gratitude without saying a thing. Kurt shoos him to go take care of Santana. His track record for the evening isn’t the best with Quinn. They split in fractioned solidarity.

“Santana?” He calls. He’s really not supposed to be back here near the double doors leading to the dressing area. It’s a testament to what a dive the bar is that he’s got this far. “Santana?” He brings a hand up to shield his eyes if necessary and pushes through the door.

 

**Santana**  
Blaine downs the shot put in front of him. He didn't drink at the bar like he promised Kurt, but he doesn't see any problem now that he's safe at home and keeping a friend from drinking alone. He doesn't have any responsibilities to worry about in the morning. He tries not to feel responsible for Santana’s choices now. He’s just company. 

She’s still fuming. She has been since Quinn rebuffed her beckoning toward the section of the apartment that became Santana’s bedroom. They keep the lights off so as not to disturb those sleeping who didn’t want to take sides and the easiest solution was to go to bed. The oversized windows and Santana’s constant toying with her cell phone – and occasionally his – provide enough light to keep them from being totally in the dark. All of her movements snap. 

“How’s Gay It Forward going?”

Blaine answers honestly. “So far it’s just hanging out with a lot of people I already know.”

“Who aren’t exactly role models. Hand me my shirt.”

Blaine neatly turns her shirt right-side-out and does as he’s asked. Her outfit looks more obscene now that she’s inside a house and out of a cage. She stripped her shirt off in a fit of rage when Quinn chose to sleep platonically in Rachel’s bed with her and yelled about what she couldn’t expect from Rachel. The sexual implications didn’t faze Rachel, but the crack at her breasts did. Remorse flickered on Santana’s face for that split second for her imprecision in lashing out. She didn’t apologize. 

Santana tugs her shirt over her head. The smell of the bar clings to their clothes. 

“Do you want to get married?” Blaine asks over the next shot.

“You’re popping that question all over the place.” She smirks at her own joke. “Not everyone proposes to people they aren’t even dating.”

“We’re dating now,” he argues. It seems like a terribly important distinction to make. 

“Still not a winning plan for those of us who live in the real world.” Santana gestures to her partially-hidden but still racy outfit. “Does this look like a desire to settle down?”

“I don’t think that’s something clothes say for us.” Kurt would argue that the purpose of clothes is to send a message, but that doesn’t mean they tell the truth.

“Then what the fuck are the bowties for?”

Blaine ignores her barb. “You like Quinn, right?”

“Quinn wants to be worth something. She's not going to throw herself away on me.” Which doesn’t answer his questions. Santana drains the last of her glass. “This is the part where you say something encouraging,” Santana says to make herself stop eying the vodka on the coffee table.

Blaine settles more solidly against her shoulder, trying to avoid her sharper edges. “The prickly ones are the best to snuggle.” He thought she’d push him away and she doesn’t and it’s so rewarding to have earned her touch by putting up with her shit. If he waits around long enough, one day she will genuinely like him, and moments like this make him believe that’s true.

Maybe it’s the alcohol tearing through her hostility-made armor making her forget to hide her sadness, but she leans back. At the bar they joked that Blaine absorbed all the drunkenness of those around him, but Blaine can’t absorb her sadness even though they’re touching. He wonders if it’s possible if he stops drinking. He sets his glass down.

“You know what I was supposed to be doing right now before you ruined it with your navel-gazing?”

Blaine resists apologizing, because he will say he’s sorry for a lot but, despite accidentally provoking Quinn, he doesn’t think he’s at fault for their fight. 

“Am I supposed to help or let it go, because I don’t want to invalidate her self determination –”

“Drink until you stop saying words like that.” Santana pushes the shot toward him.

Blaine downs it. His resolve not to drink lasted a whole 30 seconds. “But if what she needs is support…”

“You wanna be her cheerleader. Go team kinda-gay.”

“I want to help.” Blaine laughs at his own words. “I’m like American Idol auditions level of delusional about this, aren’t I? No one should be this determined to do something they’re terrible at.”

Santana doesn’t bother to address Blaine’s vocalization of his insecurities. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll go back to throwing herself at USELESS MEN” – she shrugs off Blaine shushing her for the sake of those sleeping – “regardless of what she want because she wants nothing more than being valued, and I will – I have been fabulously single but I – I work in a bar and I look like this: I do not have to stay single.”

“You’ll find a great girl.” One who probably doesn’t remind her so much of her other blonde best friend turned lover. Blaine’s seen the way Santana eyes her phone, and he doesn’t think she’s going to drunk text someone already in the apartment.

“Do you have a platitudes quota you need to hit?” Santana winces as she swallows her own shot. “I’m the best goddamned decision she’s made in years and that ain’t just because of the low bar.”

“Yale, though.”

Santana scoffs. “Real impressive when you spend that time screwing your professor. Are you planning on meeting anyone who’s actually a role model?” 

“I really do like Jan and Liz. And Rachel’s dads when they’re not being mythical, which isn’t their fault. And Kurt’s ex doesn’t like me but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t count.”

“The meerkat a stop on the tour?” 

His stomach knots and the too-strong liquid feels like it’s pushed too high, like it’s behind his lungs and it’s the reason he can feel his face flushing red. “We’re the same age.” It’s not the best argument for not seeking out mentorship given the start of his relationship with Kurt, so he amends it with, “He’s not a role model for anyone.” 

With Karofsky, Blaine was afraid of Karofsky’s anger becoming physical, but he mitigated his mistrust by meeting him in a public with a bouncer paid to break up fights. Besides nearly blinding him, the real threat with Sebastian is manipulation, and Blaine doesn’t have a sure way to counter that.

“He’s in your phone. I found him while resisting drunk-texting _my_ contacts.” Santana sits up straighter. “Get rid of him. We need to make one solid decision between the two of us tonight.” 

Blaine moves his phone out of her reach. “I get the symbolism, Santana, I do, but I don’t want to talk to him, which is exactly why I kept it. I don’t want to answer an unknown number thinking it’s my bank or a job offer and find him on the other line.”

“So you have to see him each time you open your phone? No. Delete it. Delete. It.”

Alcohol fuzzes the deletion process that Blaine has never gone through before and Santana insists he do for himself. The number appears on the screen and the other line picks up before Blaine hears the first ring and processes what his phone is doing. 

 

**Sebastian**  
“I knew you’d come around,” Sebastian purrs though the tinny reception.

Blaine shoves the phone out of his hands. It flies across the room. 

Santana cackles as she retrieves his phone and hangs up for him. 

“What did you expect him to think at this hour?” she asks at his put out expression.

He keeps the number so he’s not taken by surprise. He never wanted to talk to Sebastian again. The number is supposed to help him _avoid_ trouble. “I have to tell Kurt.” He says mournfully. “I booty-called Sebastian.” He almost gags on the words. This is where drinking gets him: he would never call Sebastian – even accidentally – when sober. 

Santana tugs him back down. “He’s asleep and you’re drunk. What is wrong with you?”

“That… is, uh, you know how teachers ask that to see if you’re paying attention because you’re supposed to consider all options and go with what’s most right? That is a multiple choice question where the last answer is _all of the above_. If all of the above is an option and you don’t know, you should probably take it.” He leans heavier. “I’m paying attention.” The words come out sleep heavy and he realizes that he’s exhausted. 

“Sebastian hitting on you isn’t your fault. I know that. Kurt knows that. You should know that too, so stop your weird little spiral. Drink more if it helps.”

“It doesn’t.” Blaine chugs water instead. A few words from Sebastian and he feels terrible. He hates being afraid Sebastian’s going to call and he’ll feel obligated to answer. Sebastian hasn’t tried in ages, but Blaine could never bring himself to say no, and for the window of time where Kurt was out of the picture he trusted his resolve to have nothing to do with Sebastian – regardless of what Sebastian wanted to do with him – even less. “I don’t like all this animosity. We should just get along. It’s all fighting and weird sexual tension.”

“And sometimes both.”

“Maybe they’re correlated.”

“Only if you’re hanging out with future convicts.”

“I sat next to Karofsky trying to find commonality and spent the whole time thinking how to take his eyes out,” he admits. He’s not handling figuring out how to be a better person as quickly as he’d like. 

“Not getting along with everyone is just incomprehensible to you, isn’t it? I’d love to throw a drink in someone’s face.” It’s the happiest look he’s seen on her face all night. 

Blaine’s a little jealous. And then a lot jealous. He would love to _metaphorically_ throw a drink in Sebastian’s face. He sobers up enough to feel upset about having to acknowledge Sebastian’s existence again but not enough to stop him from what he does next. He calls Sebastian back. 

His heart is in his throat. He speaks before Sebastian has a chance. “I’m not mad at you for wanting to sleep with me. You didn’t care when I turned you down. That’s the problem with you. I could enjoy the attention if I hadn’t already told you to _stop_. You offered to get me drunk. That’s…” Something he hadn’t thought about at the time but turned his stomach and then sat with him. Santana’s expression doesn’t change from its irritable default. He thinks maybe it’s a kindness that she’s letting him have his own reaction free from her influencing disdain or dismissiveness. “You wanted me drunk? Here I am. I’m a thousand miles away and you can’t touch me! You can’t control me. Which isn’t what you wanted at all.”

Sebastian’s voice comes through in crackles. “It was harmless. We were going to have fun. It’s like you don’t know what that is.”

Blaine wonders if this is how Marley felt when Kitty was gas-lighting her.

“Are you happy?” Blaine asks. Even for Sebastian he worries. He can’t help himself. He’s furious at reliving the past Sebastian put him through and he still has to ask.

Sebastian’s over-exaggerated sigh crackles loudly. “Just when you becoming interesting showed promise. Better luck next time.”

Sebastian hangs up. Blaine frowns at the phone in his hand. He was supposed to be the one to hang up. “I should’ve left it at the ass kicking.”

“So he’d let you have the last word? You know you can’t expect nice things from him. He’s not capable of a non-skeezy encounter.”

“But I wouldn’t…” And that’s just it. He’s baffled when people don’t react like he would. He didn’t think that any alternative existed other than the one he concocted in his mind where they have a nice heart-to-heart and learn how to be friends after Blaine properly chews him out. He’d be flattered if he was serenaded in public on Valentine’s Day and he doesn’t get why people are mean at all and he’d forgive Kurt far easier than Kurt forgave him. 

Even with Quinn: He’s not going to try and tell her who she is – he didn’t mean to and it drove him crazy when Kurt did that to him – but he also thinks that if he were willing enough to make himself vulnerable and unclothed with Santana, sexual attraction would have to be a strong driving force. He would’ve loved someone to talk to. Instead he made her uncomfortable and caused her to – no, the fight between her and Santana still isn’t his fault. They’re fighting because Santana is feeling jilted by her second pretty blonde best friend with benefits, this time before they can start dating, which has nothing to do with Blaine.

“How do I delete this now?” He shoves his phone toward Santana. He said what he wanted to say, after bottling it up for over a year, and he could go on a lot longer about every wrong Sebastian has done him but at least it’s over. He doesn’t want to say anything else. Meaning well when it comes to Quinn is awkward. Meaning well when it comes to Sebastian hurts.

Santana relents and takes the phone for him. “Watch and learn.” 

Blaine leans into her shoulder again.

Santana pats his head when she hands it back. “It’s okay. We’ll do a repeat training in the morning. I know you want to run to Kurt to make it better.”

 

**Kurt**  
Blaine brushes his teeth and climbs into bed with Kurt and Kurt wakes up enough to look confused and then smile sleepily at him with a breathy _hi_. His response of the same is just as rapturous. Kurt hugs a pillow to his chest without Blaine there to hug him. He slides the pillow out of Kurt’s clutches and replaces it with his arms around Kurt’s waist. Kurt wraps a hand around Blaine’s forearm to hold him there. 

Kurt’s voice is barely audible between the sleep and the mumbling into the pillow Blaine didn’t steal. “Stop everyone’s trainwreck tendencies?”

“Caused my own. My second, depending on how we’re counting. How’s sleeping?” His toes bump against Kurt’s ankles as he settles in closer.

Kurt hums. “Much better.”

“I’ll remember that.” 

Kurt wriggles in Blaine’s arms until they’re face to face. His eyes are heavily lidded as they lock on Blaine’s. “You know trying to find role models among our friends is a lost cause. No one knows what they’re doing. That’s not why we love them. It’s not why I love you.”

“When we first met, I didn’t do anything right, and I don’t want to keep being a disaster when people need help. I still say the wrong thing or I don’t say anything at all, and I need to move past this.” He meant to sober up to stop the word vomit from happening. He sits up to calm his easily excited heard down. “Once I’m out of high school then I’m officially the adult kids like us needed, and I have nothing to offer!”

“Blaine.” He’s definitely not close to dozing anymore. He follows Blaine into sitting upright. “You were there. That mattered. You cared. Can you name a single adult in our lives who has all the answers?”

“No, that’s my point, we didn’t have anyone to turn to or look up to and the adults in our lives were generally uninvolved, or terrible, or –.”

“My dad?”

“That’s not fair, we deliberately didn’t tell him everything, and –”

“And if he had known, he’d still only be able to help to the best of his ability. You’ve met the Berrys now. Honestly, if I’d gone to them, do you think they would’ve known what to do for me? Someone else’s kid they probably met twice? Would Figgins or the school board have someone listened to them? Would they have predicted prom?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. They could’ve done something, if they’d known they needed to.”

“What about Jan and Liz, if we knew them then?”

“Well, it would’ve been nice to know they existed.” After he says it he realized he made Kurt’s point for him. Kurt squeezes his hand as a thank you for making it easy. 

“You mattered so much because I knew I wasn’t alone. You’d gone through the same thing. It didn’t matter to me that you’re actually nine months younger or that going through the same thing didn’t mean you knew any more what to do for me. You’re not failing, Blaine. Not by a long shot.”

“But…” It’s not really an argument he wants to make, about why he’s terrible, when Kurt still manages to think differently. 

“ _Role model_ and _omniscient_ aren’t interchangeable, you know.”

Blaine ducks his head. Kurt settles back down into his pillows and waits for Blaine to join him.

“They have courses in counseling, if that’s something you eventually want to pursue?” Kurt offers. “Presumably there are whole schools of thought on advice giving.”

Blaine nestles into Kurt once again. “I’ll think about it.” Even if he doesn’t turn it into a career, it’d be nice to develop those skills. 

“And we’ll meet new people who are also gay, who also won’t have all the answers but will have led interesting lives, with experiences that might not be straightforward lessons but will at least make good stories. At the least we’ll have fun cocktail parties.”

Kurt’s voice drifts as he tells Blaine about the future they’ll have together and the people they’ll meet. He’s mumbling about a party with Isabelle’s friends when he drops off entirely.

In the morning Santana will re-teach him how to delete a contact from his phone. He’ll check in to see if Quinn wants to talk and leave her alone with her thoughts if she doesn’t. He can probably still talk them all into going to Christopher Park and getting ice cream, especially if they find a vegan option for Rachel. If he’s feeling amiable he can even tell Kurt to invite Adam.

Until then, he curls into Kurt and rests. 

 

**Blaine**  
In preparation for Blaine’s flight back to Lima, they unpack the things Blaine brought that he wants with him for their new life together. Well, Blaine unpacks. Kurt gets distracted looking through all the bowties Blaine brought but didn’t wear. On his trip to New York, he pushed the weight limit on luggage and packed books into the spare corners of his suitcase, and he’s already dreading the return trip. Time until he’s with Kurt fulltime doesn’t move fast enough. 

“Did you steal these?” Kurt runs his fingers over the barcodes on one of the books he unearths from under the bowties.

“You’ve seen these,” he tells Kurt and Kurt shrugs. “They were a gift.” Blaine turns one over fondly. The barcodes on the spine remind him where they came from. “The high school librarian – the one at my first high school – gave me the few books they had before they got defaced. She figured the school would make her give them up soon anyway, so someone should have them.” 

He doesn’t say that he could have bought his own books, that the point of being in a library is to educate as many people as possible. That her kindness was the gift when no one else at the school wanted to be involved. The books started his modest collection, and after reading them all he’d wait until Cooper was in town and demand to be driven to the bookstore to buy more, back when he couldn’t drive himself. He didn’t keep much from his first high school, not even his yearbooks, but the books from the library stayed. Some he loves and some he doesn’t care for. Regardless, through the books he had proof his wasn’t alone at his fingertips, and in a gay ghost town, it felt like everything. Someone out there wanted him to have the book so badly that they created it, and someone else bought it and put it within his reach. The books were his companions – his role models – before he met anyone he knew was gay and he loved them dearly for being there for him. 

“Do you think I could donate them back?” It looks like they’re stolen but they were a gift. They could be a gift again. He packed them without thought, just another heavy possession he could carry on and takes with him each time he moves. He hasn’t turned to one on a dreary day indoors in ages. He has people now – a long list of imperfect people – who can be ever-changing examples of what he does or doesn’t want to become. People who keep him company, or give him tours, or offer food as an excuse to spend time together like his family does. 

If he donates them, he wants to do it in Ohio. In hopes he can make it less stifling. Maybe enough time has passed that they’ll be allowed to stay on the shelves. He’ll get more books, maybe, on counseling, in case there’s a how-to manual on how to help people. Maybe he’ll even be brave enough to go back to his first high school to return them to where he needed them the most. 

Blaine slips his favorite into his satchel to reread on his flight home one last time.


End file.
